Stabbing at World's Only College for Deaf Two Murders in 6 Months

February 6, 2001 - 0:0
WASHINGTON Gallaudet University was reeling Monday after a freshman was found stabbed to death in his dorm room - the second murder in six months of a student at the World's Only Institution of Higher Learning for the Deaf. Campus ministers and grief counselors spent Sunday using sign language to console students who had trouble expressing their shock, anger and grief, the ****Washington Post**** reported. The body of Benjamin Varner, 19, was found over the weekend only three floors above where freshman Eric F. Plunkett, 19, was found beaten to death in September inside his locked room at the famed university in Washington, D.C. The post the said FBI was brought in to examine the pattern of blood spatters at the scene. After interviewing more than 100 people, police said they had no suspect and knew of no motive, and they released few details. Classes were being held Monday, though security remained heightened on campus. Lesley Joseph, a 27-year-old graduate student in mental health counseling, said that she had thought about leaving Gallaudet after the most recent slaying but that she then resolved not to "let this keep me from doing what I came here to do". "I'm half petrified, and half I don't know what to think," she told the post in sign language. "I'm scared to think I'm walking around a campus where there might be a killer." (DPA)